Where campus concealed carry stands in Colorado

Citing the challenges of implementing state law that regulates handgun permits, the Colorado General Assembly passed the Concealed Carry Act (CC) in 2003 to alleviate widespread inconsistencies within the state.

CC provides that law-abiding citizens are authorized to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense in all areas with specific exclusion for public elementary, middle, junior or high schools, or other public building or venues restricted by federal law. There is no exception for college campuses.

Prior to CCs enactment however, the University of Colorado Board of Regents formulated a weapons control policy in 1994 that prohibits anyone from carrying handguns on campus with the exception of law enforcement officials and students caught carrying one, face a minimum penalty of expulsion..

In 2008 when three students in El Paso County with CC permits sought to travel to, from and through the University of Colorado campus with a handgun for self-defense, the university denied their request to carry, and the students filed a complaint with their jurisdictional trial court.

The trial court dismissed their action against the university, but the Colorado court of appeals reversed that decision, and the students won the war in a long battle on March 5, 2012 when Colorado’s highest court unanimously affirmed the judgment of the appellate division deciding that the weapons control policy of the University of Colorado violates the Concealed Carry Act of 2003. Now, permit carrying students in the state of Colorado are free to carry a concealed handgun on college campuses.

In its decision, the court indicates that the Colorado General Assembly having a vested and prevailing interest in its citizens has the responsibility to regulate concealed handgun permits, and the authority to decide when and whether a person’s right of self-protection can be denied, not the University of Colorado. It also asserts that local governments cannot impose restrictions that conflict with state law.

The court noted that while updating Colorado criminal code to reflect provisions contained in the CC law “as specifically amended” officials surreptitiously added “any public or private college, university, or seminary” to the exclusion clause, even though no exemption exists. Is this an overlooked error or a concerted effort to keep guns off campuses, even if by fraudulent means?

Adamantly against any logical laws that protect our Second Amendment rights, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Greater Denver Million Mom March (a chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence), and Colorado Ceasefire Capitol Fund, all contributed amicus briefs or position statements to the Supreme Court in favor of the University of Colorado Board of Regents.

Surely displeased with the court’s March ruling the Brady Campaign are currently demanding that faculty, students and parents urge officials to act in reversing the “dangerous” law and have pledged to assist Colorado University in keeping young people “safe from guns”. Yet, the best way to keep young people (must be at least 21 to apply for a permit) safe from violence is by respecting the CC law and letting them carry their licensed hand gun on campus, so that if the need arises, the firearm can be used in self-defense. Of course the goal of the Brady Campaign et al. is not safety at all; the goal is gun bans and confusion.

So called messengers of public health for young people claim defeat when the Second Amendment wins. Messengers of liberty say keeping the Second Amendment alive and working protects the safety and public health for young people better than any gun restriction ever can. But this is not about young people, saving lives, or gun violence; this is about creating incremental hurdles that would eventually disarm us.

Well funded by power players that give anti-gun groups access to expensive lawyers and “amici curiae” permission, the disarming our citizens at any price crew have sold their souls to titan gun controlling, dictators such as billionaires Michael Bloomberg and George Soros, who would wake up smiling to a United States taken over by a world wide governing institution that replaces the Constitution. Not happening. Not now. Not ever. Not if we expect to survive as a Constitutional Republic.

The University of Colorado has some nerve thinking they can make up their own rules, force those rules on us, ignore the General Assembly, by pass state laws, turn their backs on the constitution, and believe they can get away with it; they really, really are one group of arrogant gun haters. They must be part of the same crew as the Brady Campaign, who act defiantly and covertly to take away Second Amendment rights at every devious turn.